In this comedy drama, Shirley MacLaine does almost too good a job of playing cantankerous president's widow Tess Carlisle - a former First Lady from hell. MacLaine is so believable in the leading role it's almost too uncomfortable to watch, while Nicolas Cage, as long-suffering Secret Service minder Doug Chesnic, displays a sure comic touch. It's attractively staged by Police Academy director Hugh Wilson and remains entertaining until it finally lurches into melodrama.

Doug is a Secret Service Agent who has just completed his stint in charge protecting Tess Carlisle—the widow of a former U.S. President, and a close personal friend of the current President. He finds that she has requested that he not be rotated but instead return to be her permanent detail. Doug is crushed, and—after returning—wants off her detail as she is very difficult to guard and makes her detail crazy with her whims and demands.